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Monday, March 12, 2012

When I was nine years old, a family of five moved upstairs, with a son my age. Ever since then, our typical Asian-mentality (I am not going to call it Tiger) parents have been surreptitiously comparing our milestones (read: achievements) against each other. We don't go to the same schools and our paths actually don't cross, other than at 9 years old, when I took Art (where I drew a lot of crabs in Chinese ink) at his primary school on Saturdays while he took Phonics and our parents carpool and again at 16 years old, when our A Maths were horrendous enough that we ended up taking weekly tuition together.

I even managed to find out his being attached (before me *annoyed* I only attracted weirdos whom I threw back into water without hesitation. I am all about nipping it in the bud early. Unfortunately it had the reverse effect). I even know the details of each entanglement. Aren't you amazed at how powerful the parent grapevine is? Or should I call it the Neighborhood gossip?

Even Mutter sounded awed when she told me about his first girlfriend. A rich, single child whose parents were BOTH entrepreneurs, so she stood to inherit everything. Parents on both sides were said to approve the match. Wah, at 18... I thought his die was cast already. I met the witch once, she evil-eyed me once when he smiled at me in the lift, and grabbed his arm possessively *oh please*. But because of the wealth, I was quite surprised he dumped her after 6 years for another girl. I mean, they even made it through the troubled NSF years, where the guy has to serve National Service and then the girl is seduced by the more mature University classmate. His parents were severely disappointed, and actually met up with the girl's parents to encourage them to reconcile.

That was until I saw Girlfriend 2. Wow she was hot. Accountancy student like him (and his ex), she was tall, sexy and pretty *envious*. You can tell the difference between a confident female from an insecure one. When I saw her with him, she smiled at me *damn I am still smitten*.

They graduated, still together, went to USA to work together. Then he flew off to Hongkong to work, and she used to fly over to visit him now and then. Seriously, this kind of RCP how to find? They were like the ultimate Yuppie couple. Being lazy slaves content to labor on in Singapore, poor B1 and I were shadowed by their brilliance. =D However about one or two years back, the Neighborhood gossip had it that he told her to not wait for him anymore, he does not intend to come back to Singapore or settle down, i.e. fuck off. After 6 years together?

Moron. Recently Mutter told me, as I was squinting at my old monitor, that the boy upstairs was getting married. Oh that's a shocker. That's not all, Mutter said almost gleefully (I am sure it was due to the sheer juiciness of the gossip), he is marrying a 18 year old from China. And his parents were in some remote province in China now, attending the wedding. Holy shit. And she got the classical "bun in the oven" *pump the shotgun*. Wow.

Apparently she was not the first Chinese girlfriend he got. Since his mother mistook my meeting the second girlfriend for the third one when Mutter told her, she said that there was another Chinese girl before this one and while he was fucking this one, the other one knew about it. I feel like passing the guy a bier, but I think he needs a noose now. I'd feel worse for the new girl, as I can tell his parents obviously despise her for entrapping their eldest, whom they pinned a lot of hopes on (they were super biased towards him, out of their three children). But I think she is the type who knows how to improve her lot and protect herself. Girls who have to leave their homes to support their families elsewhere tend to grow up quickly.

So my parents attended the wedding banquet that they threw in Singapore. I wasn't invited, but I saw his parents one day while driving into the carpark. His parents have AGED. Literally. His mother was hobbling like an aged person when they are younger than my Eltern. Mutter told me later that the groom actually apologized to his parents for putting them through so much worry and disappointing them so terribly during the wedding banquet. I asked sardonically, in Mandarin or English? In Mandarin, Mutter said. Now isn't that jerk ass thing to do, considering your wife and in laws can understand Mandarin? And it isn't the thing to do at weddings (of course, I recently attended one where the groom felt the need to berate the MRT system through his entire wedding speech, when none of the invited guests were working for LTA or MRT, and forgetting to thank his wife, and only mentioning his parents in his last breath).

"Did you see his parents-in-law's expressions?" I asked Mutter eagerly. No, she replied, the backs of their heads were facing them. Wasted. Mutter also shared juicy details that only a woman can notice and tell another appreciative female. (1) The bride does not look like she was 18 years old (actually Vater also said that) (2) The bride's mother was wearing a dress that barely covered her butt. Both Eltern had pretty NSFW comments about that (3) the bride sells jeans and has barely completed her schooling. (4) The bride was ordinary-looking.

I realize one thing. The guy is consistent. Like one of the scholars used to tell me, "Don't blame us men for changing. Actually we never did. At 18, we like 18 year olds, at 26, we like 18 year olds. Even when we are 67, we will still like 18 year olds". He has always liked girls who were around 18 years old.

I am quite curious as to how his two Singaporean ex-girlfriends would feel if they knew, and that he was returning to Singapore after all. Would it be "phew, I had a close shave?", "ohmigod, I cannot believe I used to love that idiot?", or "he deserves it!"? If it had been me, I would be "WTF".

The fact that the bride is not pretty or rich is not a big deal to me. I think Asian men like wives who are non-threatening and compliant (you should see what I have to say about traditionalist men like B1) or dominated by themselves, ie their wealth by comparison.

However as C told me once, people from different education background talk about different things. She cited an example that her friends who completed secondary school education are obsessed with surviving day to day, i.e. talk about COE prices, MRT fares, food prices, while varsity educated persons are more interested in foreign languages, learning new things, and chatting about art, books and other stuff. Given that the guy upstairs and his wife come from such different backgrounds, I think they will have to work harder than other couples in order to stay together because they do not have common interests to begin with.